


On Solid Ground

by altairattorney



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5053984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altairattorney/pseuds/altairattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can easily picture how they made the mistake of dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Solid Ground

Chell knows the dangers of dreaming.

That everyone before her shared the same wish – to be somewhere else, really, anywhere but this godforsaken hellscape – is not a certainty, but it might be. The longing still clings to the walls, just like their screams.

She feels it, but she knows better.

It was a slip of mind to make each of them fall, most likely, when things got worse and they weren’t paying attention. She can easily picture how they made the mistake of dying.

Snapshots of family, of a warmth lost, or memories of quiet corners of world they never even got to see. All it took was a derailing mind, prey of despair. They built better paintings on the gloomy concrete – and right there, against those projections of happiness, their calculations would shatter like nothing.

It was a dangerous blessing, the escapist game she guessed they had been playing. It was distraction.

That fear got the best of them, or thirst and starvation – she does not count that out. But what she knows, out of a cruel experience, is that they all lead to the same thing.

As much as she would prefer it were, this is not a nightmare. This is no fleeting illusion, easily changed by one’s imagination. This is the starkest reality she has met.

And her grasp on it, for what it’s worth, is her only way out of this place.

**Author's Note:**

> Written to remind myself that dissociated states of mind do more damage than good. Out of the other things, I noticed so many typos in my recent writing, which was all correct in my brain. Just more proof that my mind is elsewhere lately, more than it usually is. I'm trying to plant my feet on solid ground, and keep them there.


End file.
